Yarns Without Threads 

DELLA STREET, Perry Mason's confidential secretary, placed her palm over the mouthpiece of the telephone and said to the lawyer, 'Do you want to talk with a girl who has been robbed?'

'Of what?' Mason asked.

'She says of everything.'

"Why is she calling me instead of the police?'

'She says that's something she'll have to explain.'

'So it would seem,' Mason observed.

'She sounds like a nice girl, Chief. She's in quite a predicament.'

'All right. Tell her to come in and I'll see her, Della.'

'I asked her about coming in. She says she can't. She has nothing to wear.'

Mason threw back his head and laughed. 'Now,' he said, 'I've heard everything. I'll talk with her, Della. What's her name?'

'Arlene Duvall.'

Mason said, 'Throw the communicating switch so we can both listen, Della. This I have to hear.'

Mason picked up his phone and, when Della Street had thrown the switch, said, 'Yes. Hello. ... Perry Mason speaking.'

'Mr Mason, this is Miss Arlene Duvall.'

'Yes.'

'I want to see you on a matter of the greatest importance. I... I have money to pay for your services.

'Yes.'

'I've been robbed.'

'Well,' Mason said, winking at Della Street, 'come in and see me, Miss Duvall.'

'I can't.'

'Why?'

'I've nothing to wear.'

Mason said, 'We're not particularly formal here. I would suggest you come just as you are.'

'If you could see me you'd cancel that suggestion.'

'Why?' Mason asked.

'What I have on wouldn't hide a postage stamp.'

'Well,' Mason said impatiently, 'put something on. Put on anything. You -'

'I can't.'

'Why?'

'I tell you I've been robbed.'

'Wait a minute,' Mason said, 'what is this?'

'I'm trying to tell you, Mr Mason, that I've been robbed. Everything I have in the world has been taken - my clothes, my personal effects, my car, my home.'

'Where are you now?'

'At the fourteenth hole at the Remuda Golf Club. The members have installed a telephone out here. The golf club seems to be deserted just now. I lied to the operator at the clubhouse by telling her I was a member, so she put the call through. I need clothes. I need help.'

Mason, suddenly interested and curious, said, 'Why not call the police, Miss Duvall?'

'I can't call the police. They mustn't know anything about this. I'll explain when I see you. If you can arrange to get some clothes to me I'll pay -'

'Just a minute,' Mason said. 'I'll put my secretary on the line.' ...

Mason glanced at his watch. 'My next appointment is at two o'clock. We can just about make it, Della. This thing has really aroused my curiosity. Let's go.'

'What happened?' Mason asked.

'It's a long story.'

Mason led the way up to the veranda, ordered drinks, then settled back in the chair. 'Let's hear the story.'

'I was living in a trailer.'

'All by yourself?'

She nodded.

'In a trailer camp?'

'Only part of the time. There's a service road that runs to the back of the golf course. Very few people know of it. I think perhaps I was the only one who travelled that road regularly. When they bought the course it was part of a large tract of land. There's a long wooded stretch down below the fourteenth hole, and a stretch of sloping, grassy meadow. Then there are more woods and then the highway.

'I found that I could drive in on this service road, park my trailer and have complete privacy. No one seemed to object. In fact I don't think anyone ever went down to that part of the club. It must be two hundred yards in an air line from the meadow to the nearest fairway, and it's probably another two hundred yards in an air line to the road. It is, of course, longer the way the service road winds in through the woods.'

'Go on,' Mason said.

She met his eyes. 'I'm a nature girl. I like to get out and prowl around through the woods. I like to go barefooted. I like to take all my clothes off and brown in the sun.' ...

'So this morning you went sun-bathing?'

'I followed my usual custom. I slipped out of my clothes, took a robe, crossed the open meadow into the woods, then took the light robe off and just walked around in the sunlight for a while, feeling the air on my skin, the grass on my bare feet. You'll probably think I'm crazy. If you haven't been a sun bather you'll never understand the freedom, the caress of the air, the warmth of the sunlight, the touch of a passing breeze. Oh, what's the use?'

'You called me instead of the police?' The way Mason made the statement it was more of a question than a assertion.

'Naturally. Can you imagine a girl attired in a diaphanous wisp of sunlight, having two police officers from a radio car determining what had been stolen by taking an inventory of what was left. And, of course, that- would make a beautiful story for the newspapers. I can just see the headlines: sun-bathing blonde loses everything except smile and sun tan. And then, of course, newspaper photographers would want pictures with the proper back lighting.'

'And yet you hop around and sun-bathe.'

'Up to now,' she said, 'I didn't think anyone knew about this place.'

'Don't kid yourself,' Mason said. 'They've been watching you. They've had you trailed with cars, with motorcycles. They've probably been watching you from helicopters.'

'I thought that I'd worn them out.'

'You want to bet?' Mason asked her.

She thought for a moment, then shook her head.

Mason said, 'While you've been traipsing around in your bare feet, feeling the caress of wind on you skin, a couple of detectives have been sizing you up with binoculars.'

'That's their privilege.'